This is not quite an oyster dinner, dependent on church-basement table space that can require sometimes onerous waits. An oyster dinner - say, the oyster and pork dinner held annually at the Carversville (Pa.) Christian Church since 1871 - can test a body's constitution in that regard, though the reward of stewed tomatoes and congregation-shucked corn, juicy roast pork and fried oysters applies a soothing balm. (Oct. 17 is the next one.)
No, "our event is a picnic," the Rev. Bill Gaydos said by way of contrast in the invitation he sent: "It's served in a pavilion in an old-time picnic grove with bands playing" the whole afternoon long.
And so it is, abetting socializing, giving various chapters to the long day, pacing the eating: If the shucking table is backed up, you can slide over to the blue cooler where the pastor's wife, Jacki, makes sandwiches of the Scottish farmed salmon she smokes for three hours in the Wal-Mart smoker on her porch.
Likewise, if the line stalls for the oyster platters (three deep-fried oysters, potato salad, a roll, and vinegary slaw called pepper hash, or hereabouts "pickled cabbage," $8.50), a baked goods counter is just paces away, or a hamburger stand, or, being hand-pumped under a nearby shed roof, birch beer from a Wert's Beverage barrel, lightly foamy, abidingly sweet, finished with a tart, sassafrass-y tang.
Or you can simply chill for a while, pull up a chair at the bandstand, listen to the bluegrass gospel, the fiddling and picking, the defiant strains of patriotic tunes or of hymns urging Christian soldiers to march onward, as to war.
